Loung Ung and Angelina Jolie, seen above in Cambodia collaborating on film project, will be at Asia Society on December 14 for panel discussion (photo courtesy of Netflix)
Who: Angelina Jolie, Rithy Panh, Phloeun Prim, Loung Ung, Darren Walker
What: Panel discussion on the journey of resilience experienced by the Cambodian people and documented by artists in the post-Khmer Rouge era
Where: Asia Society, 725 Park Ave. at 70th St., 212-288-6400
When: Thursday, December 14, $25, 5:00
Why: In conjunction with the outstanding Asia Society exhibition “After Darkness: Southeast Asian Art in the Wake of History” and the U.S. premiere of Him Sophy and Rithy Panh’s Bangsokol: a Requiem for Cambodia at BAM, Asia Society is hosting “Light after Darkness: Memory, Resilience, and Renewal in Cambodia,” a panel discussion on December 14 with American actress, filmmaker, and Special Envoy to UN High Commissioner for Refugees Angelina Jolie, Cambodian director Panh (The Missing Picture), Cambodian Living Arts executive director Phloeun Pri, and memoirist and screenwriter Loung Ung (First They Killed My Father, which was directed by Jolie), moderated by Ford Foundation president Darren Walker. “Some have said that poetry after atrocity is not possible anymore, yet we need to have it. We must continue to create. We can’t start mourning without knowing how, and part of knowing how is to accept something very painful, something unexplainable. This art may bring us answers, help us accept our pain and loss. Yet, it is more than an act of remembrance; it’s an act of transmission and brings humanization,” Panh says about Bangsokol.